How the ‘One Piece’ Live Action Series Balanced CGI and Practical Effects

In 2023, the conversation around CGI use in movies and series became more important than ever. Not only because blockbusters have been slammed by fans for it, but also because the VFX professionals are done with the way that Hollywood has been handling their work, so they are mobilizing their sectors to unionize. In an interview to Collider’s Mike Thomas, production designer Richard Bridgland revealed what was One Piece’s approach to visual effects.

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As it is set within a fantasy world with huge monsters all around and Luffy (Iñaki Godoy) stretching his body to impossible lengths, it’s safe to say that One Piece went hard on CGI. But Bridgland said that when it came to set pieces, practical effects and real-life constructions were the norm, with the production team taking cues from when TV and movies were made before computers could help:

“We only used visual effects really just to extend the world beyond the sets, but it was pretty old-school filmmaking. We built big sets, and it was like one after another. It really was important for ‘One Piece’ to feel credible and not feel sort of somewhere between a live-action thing and the anime. If too much had been visual effects, like, say, a lot of ‘Star Wars’ stuff is shot that way, it wouldn’t have felt like a real world, and it was really important that by doing a live-action version, it felt like a real place, but just a kind of parallel world.”

TV and Movie Industries Are About to See a Big Change in VFX Work

A big part of the One Piece world is, of course, the huge slate of pirate ships that populate the franchise. Through the trailers and other promotional material we’ve seen so far, Netflix made it pretty clear that the production team was committed to really building those ships on location in Cape Town, Africa – including, of course the Going Merry and even the Baratie, which looks like it’s pretty hard to build in real life.

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Over the last months, VFX professionals have been calling out studios for abusive practices when it comes to their work, and they’ve been singling out Disney and Marvel Studios as real “bullies” when it comes to the amount of work they are required to deliver with famously impossible deadlines. This is true for the whole segment, and the decrease in quality of special effects in several productions is a direct consequence of that.

Netflix premieres One Piece this Thursday, August 31. You can watch the latest trailer below: